‘Distraught’ champion’s heartbreak at World Athletics Championships

The brutal moment an American sprint star collapsed at the Athletics World Championships has been captured in horrifying detail.

English Gardner of the United States reacts to an injury during the Women's 100 Metres semi-final.

Two runners turned immediately at the finish line and walked back up the track to where American sprint star English Gardner lay forlorn and alone in the middle of the Doha Stadium.

The Olympic 100m relay gold medallist was “distraught” — according to the BBC, after her hamstring snapped in the middle of the women’s 100m semi-final at the Athletics World Championships in Qatar.

The 27-year-old — who tore a cruciate ligament in 2017 which kept her off the track for 13 months — pulled up and collapsed.

Gardner lay down and pounded the track with her fists before burying her face into the track and her own hands.

English Gardner pulled up immediately.

She was still inconsolable when British sprinter Dina Asher-Smith ran back down the track along with Morolake Akinosun to help Gardner get to her feet.

After an emotional moment where the two runners pulled Gardner to her feet as a wheelchair arrived, Gardner was wheeled off the track, still trying to hide her face from the crowd.

The cruel scene was captured in horrifying details by photographers, and threatened to overshadow the women’s 100m final scheduled for later on Sunday night.

English Gardner covers her face after getting injured.

Asher-Smith returned to the track a few hours later for the women’s 100m final and blitzed a British national record of in a national record of 10.83 seconds to take the silver medal behind Jamaican sprint legend Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

32-year-old Fraser-Pryce won her record fourth women’s 100 metres world title, coasting to an impressive victory in a world leading time for the year of 10.71 seconds.

Fraser-Pryce — also a two-time Olympic champion — punched the air in front of the Jamaican team seated in the stands before taking a national flag from them.

She collected her two-year-old son Zyon — he was born the day after the 2017 championships had finished which prevented her from defending her title in London — and paraded with him round the track sadly in front of largely empty stands.

English Gardner was alone on the track.

“To be standing here as world champion again after having my baby, I am elated,” said Fraser-Pryce.

“The females keep showing up. We love to put on a performance and for me I am just really happy to come away with the win.”

Fraser-Pryce, who announced her talent when she took Olympic gold 11 years ago in Beijing, confessed that eve of final nerves had got to her.

“I had no sleep last night. Last time I was at a major championship was in 2016 and that feeling of ‘oh my God I need bed’ — it was just not happening.

“For me it is just experience and knowing some days will be good but mental toughness will get me through.”

Fraser-Pryce, who won her first world 100m title in 2009, said having Zyon had given her a real boost even though he is yet to show the same aptitude having refused to start his first race at nursery school earlier this year.

“My son Zyon has been my strength, my family and husband have been my strength,” she said.

USA's English Gardner.

“Having my son and coming back, performing the way I did, I hope I can give inspiration to all the women starting family or thinking of starting a family.

“You can do anything. It’s about who you are and why you started in the first place.”

2017 silver medallist Marie-Josee Ta Lou took the bronze in 10.90.

Asher-Smith — who in the London 2012 Olympics carried the kit of athletes competing in the track and field and was inspired by heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill — said she hoped the silver would be the launchpad for greater things.

“I worked so hard for this, for this championship, and hopefully I’ll go on to do bigger things,” she said.

“When I stood on the line I was thinking right, this is your time to go. “A personal best, a national record — that is more than you can ask for in a final.

“Shelly-Ann did a fantastic performance and that’s why she’s an absolute legend. I am happy.”

Fraser-Pryce will now bid to become the first woman to achieve a second world sprint double in the 200m having pulled that off in Moscow in 2013.

Originally published as ‘Distraught’ champion’s heartbreak at World Athletics Championships